Art school, wood shop controversy escalates
Senior art and design students George Vidas and Stephen Denman created their own wood shop in the hallway of Binns-Merrill Hall in protest of its temporary closing, at noon Nov. 11.
Art students from all divisions use the wood shop for various purposes. From painters making frames and stretcher bars, to ceramicists making brackets to hang their tiles, to students making pedestals for their senior shows, the wood shop is an extremely important facility for art majors.
In previous years, administration allowed undergraduate work-study students who worked with the wood shop technician Eric Ewald to monitor the wood shop. This provided flexible hours including hours in the evening and weekends.
However, with the arrival of the new dean of the School of Art and Design, Leslie Bellavance, came the arrival of a much more strict set of safety rules. These rules included the decree that the wood shop could only be open when Ewald was present, which, according to Dean Bellavance, was based on liability issues. Because the weight of monitoring the woodshop now falls solely on one man’s shoulders, the hours of access to the woodshop have been severely decreased. All evening hours have been cut and it is only open four days a week.
Frustrated by lack of communication and action, Vidas and Denman set up a work table, a chop saw, and all of the necessary safety equipment in the hallway outside of the dean’s office, where they intended to assemble stretcher bars for some of the junior painting students. This performance came as a complete surprise to the dean’s office, and Dean Bellavance quickly came into the hallway to address the situation.
This was not the first instance students expressed concern with the growing issue of limited access in the School of Art and Design. On September 10, students delivered copies of a petition (signed by 116 graduate and undergraduate students from the art school) to the dean’s office, provost's office, the university president’s office, the chair of the three dimensional studies division, and Ewald. Among many other points, the petition stated that limiting hours decreased safety by forcing more students to use the woodshop at the same time. The petition asked for a return to a system of student technicians/studio monitors.
“Trusting students with part of the responsibility for keeping studios safe and open helps everybody: it lowers the burden on staff, gives great work experience to the student monitors, and gives the rest of the student body more freedom to complete their work.”
Dean Bellavance responded on September 15 with an email to the student body. In the email, she responded to each point from the petition individually, and also stated that she agreed that more hours of access were necessary and that she was working on solutions to the problem. She also reiterated her emphasis on safety. She closed the email by promising further communication and updates about the status of the woodshop.
However, two months later, the hospitalization of Ewald and inability of administration to find any additional support staff, forced the students to take action in form of the protest in front of Dean Bellavance’s office.
Students gathered to watch and listen, as a conversation between Denman, Vidas, and Dean Bellavance on the issues of surrounding the woodshop followed the demonstration.
Denman and Vidas argued the recent closure of the wood shop due to Ewald’s absence was forcing students to take desperate measures in order to get their work done, including using Sawzalls in the hallways.
Dean Bellavance agreed that the situation was dangerous, and once again stated that she was searching for part-time employees to monitor the woodshop. Bellavance added she was “aware that there are not enough hours… [but that]… administratively things take a long time.”
When Denman questioned her about the possibility of graduate students being monitors Bellavance suggested “If you’re in the position that you have a graduate student as a teacher’s assistant, ask your faculty about it and I think that would make a huge difference.”
Bellavance also stated that she had just learned of Ewald’s long-term absence that day, and that she had previously planned on waiting for him to return before she looked into replacements.
When Dean Bellavance asked Vidas and Denman what they would suggest as an immediate solution, Denman replied “having it fixed before it started.”
Vidas and Denman implored her to communicate with students about these issues through email.
It appears that the Denman and Vidas’ demonstration was effective in provoking the administration to take action. On November 12, 57 days after her September 15 email promising communication, Dean Bellavance emailed the student body notifying them that a substitute supervisor had been found and that new hours to the woodshop would start immediately, including hours of access on November 12. The email also stated that an additional staff member had been approved to supervise the woodshop.
To the relief of many art majors, Denman and Vidas’ performance effectively spurred a much needed response from the administration.
